1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an instrument for performing an emergency cricothyroidotomy to prevent a person from choking to death when a foreign object is lodged in the throat or when severe trauma occurs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Choking is a relatively frequent cause of death which occurs when a piece of food or foreign matter lodges in the throat causing suffocation. Trauma can also cause blockage of the throat in which case breathing will be severely limited or stopped. In the past when a person is choking, removal of the object lodged in the throat has been effected by a hard slap on the back, physically pulling out the object with the fingers or by the Heimlich maneuver which requires a person to stand behind the person who is choking and wrap their arms around the victim's abdomen just below the ribs and with a quick, hard jerk, force the air from the victim's lungs which will, hopefully, eject the object which is lodged in the throat. However, these procedures are not always successful in which case a person can die from suffocation caused by choking.
In hospitals and in out-patient care centers a tracheotomy may be performed by trained medical personnel to create an airway to the trachea when a person is choking. However, tracheotomies per se are not designed to be performed away from hospitals or similar environments.
A need exists for a simple lifesaving instrument for victims who fail to respond to a slap on the back or to the Heimlich maneuver and who are not in the immediate proximity of a hospital where a tracheotomy can be performed. Military and civilian medical personnel are taught to perform emergency cricothyroidotomy by using available instruments as a pen knife, a fountain pen, a pencil or even a small stick with a pointed end to form an airway until a tracheotomy can be performed or the object is surgically or manually removed. In this procedure a hole is punched in the trachea through the skin below the cricothyroid artery in the cricothyroid cartilage area. This hole allows the victim to breathe until the foreign object is removed from the throat or until the trauma situation no longer exists.